Best Training Tips For Beginners
Getting started with resistance training is incredibly thrilling. The possibilities are endless, daydreaming about your results is satisfying, and it’s a whole new thing to get yourself into.
Only there’s a tiny problem:
It’s also frustrating, confusing, and challenging to get started. There are many new movements to learn, principles to familiarize yourself with, and nuances to consider. And that’s just the training side of the equation.
To make your beginning as frictionless as possible, we’ve put together this guide. In it, we’ll go over the best training practices you should learn and apply as a beginner.
Warm-Up Well (But Don’t Go Overboard)
Typically, we can classify gym beginners in two ways when it comes to warming up:
Those who disregard the warm-up entirely and instead jump into their working sets right from the start;
Those who put so much attention to their warm-up that it takes up half their working out time;
But, as with most things, achieving a healthy balance is more important than anything else you can do. A proper warm-up is vital, but there is such a thing as doing too much. So, here is how to go about it:
General Warm-Up
Photo by Sarah Pflug from Burst
The goal of the general warm-up is to raise your core body temperature, get you in the mindset of training, warm-up your joints, and increase your heart rate. Here, for example, you can do five minutes of low-intensity cardio, followed by a few minutes of dynamic movements such as leg and arm swings.
Specific Warm-Up
Once you’re past the general portion of your warm-up, it’s time to get specific. This is where you’ll be giving particular attention to the joints and surrounding muscle groups that will be involved in the workout.
For example, if you plan on doing squats as a first exercise, don’t immediately load your working weight on the bar and get to it. Start with the bar and slowly add weight until you feel challenged enough. So, if you plan on squatting with 135 pounds, do something like this:
Warm-up set – 45 pounds (empty bar) for 10 to 15 reps
Warm-up set – 75 pounds for 3 to 5 reps
Warm-up set – 105 pounds for 1 to 3 reps
First working sets – 135 pounds
The goal of the specific warm-up is to help you familiarize yourself with the movement pattern, warm-up further, and put you in the mindset for training.
Learn Proper Technique (And Focus On The Fundamental Movements)
As a beginner to resistance training, it’s essential to do two things:
1) Work on mastering the proper technique of the fundamental exercises.
2) Avoid trying to learn too many activities at the same time.
Too many beginners tackle the gym as if they’ve been lifting weights for a decade. They try to do too many different movements right from the start, and that only serves to overwhelm them and increase their risk of injury.
So, a better way to go about it is to select no more than ten exercises and put all of your attention and effort into them. One way to go about it is to teach yourself by watching instructional videos, applying what you learn, and film some of your training sets to see how things are looking from the side.
Another way to go about it is to hire a coach who can give you a solid base of training.
With that said, here are ten great exercises you can start learning:
1) A squat variation
2) Classic or sumo deadlifts
3) Flat and incline bench press
4) Overhead press
5) Rows with a barbell or dumbbells
6) Pull-ups or chin-ups
7) EZ bar lying skullcrushers
8) EZ bar bicep curls
9) Lateral dumbbell raises
10) Face pulls
Program Your Training Effectively
This is arguably the most intricate portion of training, not just as a beginner, but in general. To make it as easy as possible, we’ve broken down ‘effective training’ into five distinct categories. By learning them individually, you can more easily put them together without feeling overwhelmed. Let’s take a look:
1. Training Volume
Training volume refers to the amount of work you do within a workout or training week. The best way to track it is by counting the number of hard sets you do for each muscle group. For example, if you do four sets of bench press and four sets of push-ups, that’s a total of eight sets for your chest.
General guidelines recommend the following:
Do 10 to 16 weekly sets for larger muscles (your back, chest, legs)
Do 6 to 10 weekly sets for smaller muscles (your biceps, triceps, shoulders, etc.)
You should start with the minimum and see how that works for you. So long as you’re making steady progress, don’t add more work for the sake of doing more.
2. Training Frequency
Training frequency refers to the number of times you train a given muscle group every week. Typically, research and anecdotal evidence suggest that we should train our muscles at least twice per week.
As a beginner, that would be beneficial both because it would give you the option to stimulate your muscles more often and because it will help you master the proper training technique more quickly. It is one thing to train, say, the bench press once per week, but it’s a whole other thing to do it twice within every seven days.
So, your next step is to take your weekly training volume for each muscle group and split it into two – that is a simple and effective way to set up your training without confusing yourself. Here is an example:
Back and chest:
Monday – 5 sets of chin-ups, 5 sets of flat barbell bench press
Thursday – 5 sets of barbell rows, 5 sets of incline dumbbell press
You’re effectively doing ten weekly sets for your chest and back, while also training both muscle groups twice within the week.
3. Training Intensity
Training intensity refers to the amount of weight you’re lifting, relative to your one-repetition-max. For example, if you can squat 135 pounds for a single, a set with 75 percent of your 1RM would be 100 pounds.
For the most part, you should train in a variety of repetition ranges, with both heavy and light sets in the mixture.
For example, you can do compound exercises like the barbell bench press in the 80-85 percent of 1 RM for sets of 5 to 8 reps. You should also have lighter work for 8 to 20 reps on accessory and isolation exercises like EZ-bar bicep curls.
4. Intensity of Effort
Intensity of effort simply refers to how close you are training to muscle failure. For the most part, beginners are taught that they should take every set to failure. This is counterproductive because failure training doesn’t seem to deliver better results, but it can significantly slow down our recovery and hinder our performance.
For example, if you plan on doing four sets on the bench press and you go to failure on the first set, expect your performance to drop significantly for the remaining three. But, if you instead pace yourself and always leave one to three reps in the tank, you’ll be able to do more total repetitions and stimulate better results in the long run.
Training to failure is also dangerous, especially for beginners, because it causes a breakdown in technique. On complex exercises like deadlifts, rows, and bench press, that form breakdown can lead to injuries.
5. Rest Periods Between Sets
Prevailing wisdom suggests that we should rest as little as possible and attack each set with enthusiasm and vigor. But, here’s the thing:
If you don’t rest long enough between sets, you will be too fatigued to perform your repetitions on each set. So, as a rule of thumb, rest for as long as you need, so you can keep doing the same number of reps on every set. For example, if you can do ten repetitions on the first set, you should be able to do at least eight on the last. Provided, of course, you’re not taking any of the sets to failure.
Generally, this would mean:
3 to 5 minutes of rest on compound exercises in the lower rep ranges (2 to 6)
2 to 3 minutes of rest on compound and accessory movements in the 6 to 8 rep range
1.5 to 2.5 minutes of rest on accessory movements in the 8 to 12 rep range
60 to 90 seconds on isolation movements in the 12+ repetition range